Essex to invest £4m in two years for its digital transformation

Essex will invest up to £4m over the next two years to support digital transformation work across two supplier engagements.

Essex County Council (ECC) awarded a nine-month contract worth £1.9m to Socitm Advisory to help transform its technology services function, and launched a £2m tender for a longer-term transformation partner.

The council required a supplier to provide flexible capacity of multi-disciplinary teams to support it in the design, development, integration and delivery of services.

The Socitm contract will see the consulting organisation deliver work packages aimed at transforming the council’s technology services function and developing its technical portfolio of change.

The focus of this work is to move the ECC from a previous programme of technology modernisation to a new portfolio of work focussed on delivering real value to the council and the citizens of Essex.

The initiative aims to lead the council towards a new technology footprint which is “sustainable and underpinned by best practice processes, procedures and governance”.

Jason Kitcat, executive director of Corporate Development at Essex County Council, said, “Socitm Advisory has delivered at pace with strong, credible, grounded advice to help us re-imagine our technology services function. Through Socitm we’ve been able to access highly experienced experts to assist us with every aspect of our roadmap as well as providing excellent interim leadership at short notice during a restructure.”

David Bryant, chief executive of Socitm Advisory, said, “We are delighted to be working with Essex County Council to help transform the way services are delivered across the county. Socitm Advisory has a growing relationship with ECC, which will be further enhanced by this new programme of work.”

Bryant added, “Drawing on our expertise in innovative transformation in the public sector, we will work closely with the council and its partners and suppliers to create a secure, reliable, and flexible modern infrastructure that enables new ways of working to benefit both the council and its customers.”

In addition to the Socitm deal, the council this week published a contract notice on the Digital Marketplace seeking a “service design partner” for the next two years to provide senior management advisory and strategic support.

The council announced it was “looking to partner with an expert in service design and strategy for the internet age, to support, challenge and lead the work of the council’s teams, deliver efficiencies and embed user-centred design and an agile mindset as ‘the way we do things’ across the organisation”.

The contract will be composed of two elements. The first component worth up to £500k over a period of two years, will be for core strategic support, capability building, service design support and scoping of service design statements of work. The second part, worth up to £1.5m over the next two years, will be for the delivery of service design discovery, alpha and beta statements of work, to be scoped and defined in as part of core strategic support. Although the notice warned that “this is not guaranteed work, and each statement of work may be subject to additional internal governance and approval processes”.

The council said, “Our senior leadership teams require strategic support to help identify and explore transformational opportunities, and to move away from traditional delivery approaches and reliance on legacy systems. A programme of practical capability development is required to shift the mindset, capabilities and delivery models of ECC teams towards being more citizen-focussed, and to embed these new approaches and an awareness of the Government Service Standards as the way we work.”

“We need to think very differently about how we operate in order to achieve our ambitions whilst supporting the delivery of savings targets of £186m by 2021”, the council said.

Applications close on July 31. The work is scheduled to begin on September 3.

Last year the council outlined its digital strategy at the Smart Essex Digital Summit. The strategy laid out plans for the use of digital services and smart-city technology in a number of service areas. During the summit, different themes were explored including how technology can impact on people’s lives and streamline public services. The event aimed to redefine how a digital strategy can support public services in today’s challenging financial times and drive economic growth to meet the needs and aspirations of a changing and growing population.